


Slow Show

by cannella



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Mentions of Violence, Nothing is people, Will Graham Has a Nice Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 21:09:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cannella/pseuds/cannella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been three weeks since Will has been proven innocent and released from jail. It's been three weeks since Hannibal has been caught. It's been three weeks, and sometimes it is still hard. And yet - you bet it feels good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Show

 Will wakes up gasping. It takes a few minutes for his breath to slow down, for his mind to articulate the basis: that he's awake. He's alive. And he's free.

When he manages to turn his head, he finds Winston standing at bare inches from his face. Will’s hand goes to the dog's head and Winston licks it, quick touches of his rough tongue grounding Will's body to the world again. Will smiles; he can almost sense his facial muscles creak in the movement, but he doesn't care. He stands up, and goes to make some coffee.

The warmth penetrates his body through the palms of his hands before it even passes his lips. The coffee is bitter, and it's strong, precisely as he wants it to smash his mind awake. He bids himself to walk, after a while. With the warm cup still in his hands, small steps along the walls of his house, asking his mental perception of space to broaden beyond the 4x4 of the cell. Even his house seems boundless. His pulse increases, but it's under control. After three weeks, it's something. Will bows to caress Sid's head, the one sitting closer to him. He prepares milk and doggy crunchies for them all, and listens to his own breath as he watches the dogs eat. His coffee is still warm, as he sips the last sip.

When a car breaks into the silence it's exactly ten o' clock and a smile fights his way through Will's face. The first time she came here _in the aftermath_ , he panicked. There's rage and some kind of wonder in that memory, this morning. After all, his whole existence in the cell had thickened around the very thought of vengeance and there was no panic, no fear whatsoever, in his meticulous attempts to reach to it. Every single time he dreamt of shooting him, of strangling him, or, in a never repeated though unseemingly vivid occasion, to remove his eyes from their cavity and feed them to him - it's really not of fear he would talk of. And that first time when he felt the knowledge sinking: that he had made it. That he had switched the cards. That next time, he would have been the one to stroll the aisle; and, staring from between the bars, there would have been Lecter. Well, the triumphant flood that ran through his body the burning way an orgasm tears you apart didn't taste as fear, either. Once he got home, though, something happened. As if his senses, even more than his mind, had been momentarily swallowed by the mud of the last days he spent here, when everything was on fire, and he had gone blind. The paralising anguish of not knowing where danger was going to come out from. The sickness of wondering if he was the one verging on pulling the trigger. The last livid morning seen by this house. The lack of knowledge, and of the power he lately tapped from it, eating at his mind and flesh. So, the first time that car broke into the silence and the alert put his body on shock, Bev proposed this system. Sunday morning, ten o' clock, a car arriving, it's me coming. That simple. That's a childish trick; he sure as hell knows. Point is, it works. And here she is, walking the short distance from the car to the porch, already smiling, already bright eyed, already caressing the dogs around her.

“Good morning,” she smiles while letting go of the jars she was bringing. Will can distinguish yellow, white, and who knows what, in the low light pouring through his not so clean windows. “Didn't think I was kiddin', did you?”. “No,” Will says, his mouth tensed in a grin. “Fine. If you want, I'll wait outside as you get dressed,” and it's only when she nods at him that Will realises he's still in his boxer. The very chance of being able to give himself a clean change, of getting to organize his moves, his time, still slips away from him. He nods, then, but then “no,” he finds himself saying, “you can stay. I'll be done in a minute,” to which he adds “you can make yourself coffee. If you want”. Beverly gazes at him, eyes a little widened, and Will flees to the bathroom. His reflection stares at him; he doesn't look back. Under the boiling water, loud and pounding on his skin, he realizes it's fine. The thought of Bev alone in his house, of another human being strolling through his things, bowing down to the table where he used to build his lures, smelling his clothes, watching his dogs, while he can do nothing to protect his possessions, to protect himself – it doesn't bother him. Not with Bev.

***

Choosing the colour takes them forever. In the end, they set up for a tenuous ocher, which speaks of lazy sunsets and warm sand where to go barefoot. Regardless of the efforts they put in it, sparks of house painting end up inevitably on different regions of their clothes and bodies – Bev’s cheek as she carelessly rubs an hand against it, Will’s bare feet when the brush drops yellowish drops without him noticing, Will’s worn out The Doors t-shirt, Bev’s worn out denim – and every single time, Bev laughs. Sometimes they chat, meaning that Bev does the chatting and Will finds himself nodding, smiling, even briefly laughing at the end of an ardent philippic she makes about Lost’ finale. Mostly, though, they just remain quiet, only the wind blowing gently out of the half-closed window, the dogs casually yapping around them, their own muscles tending in the methodical effort **.**

“Time out!,” Bev calls out after a while. She lets herself fall on the sofa, and a silly moan escapes her mouth as she notices another stain on her jeans.

“We could eat something,” Will proposes before remembering, first, the hollow wasteland of his fridge, second, that Bev never stays for lunch. “Sounds great,” Beverly says all the same, and: “d’ya like bagels?”

Will stares at her as she stands up, opens the bag she carried in the morning and lets out a cooler. Will tenses up **.** He doesn’t know if she noticed it; what he knows, though, it’s that her movements become slower, quieter, as she carefully puts on the table - for him to see - cream cheese, red onions, smoked salmon – everything in its supermarket package, everything neat and sealed. Will’s breath grows quieter. “I figured out it would take us forever to paint everything and dropped by at the supermarket before coming,” Bev says, and puts on the table a small paper bag, the fragrance of freshly baked bagels spreading in the room: -“is it fine for you?”. Will nods, feeling the small grin on his face as he understands he is never going to state out loud what is concern was, and what solved it – bagels can’t be people. He knows Bev knows, though, and may even have given it a thought or two herself; and that’s relieving, knowing he’s not the only one being that particular brand of crazy these days.

He heads up to the microwave, only to get to know that Bev wants to heat the bagels up in a covered frying pan, “’cos they stay more fragrant that way”. They do stay fragrant. The bagels seem perfect, to be honest, all golden and smelly, and once Bev has filled them up with every ounce of filling they could possibly contain she gets back to her bag, takes out a little bottle of olive oil, and springs a little of it on what looks like perfection. Will and Bev have washed nothing but their hands, so they sit at the table, covered in painting and everything, and start to eat, surrounded by the silly sounds the dogs make while eating. Bev seems to struggle not to laugh, at one point; she points out to Will’s nose and, when he looks at her puzzled: “your nose – cream cheese detected,” she smiles at him. Will tries and rubs his nose - with a dirty hand. “Fail,” she smiles again: “Can I?”. Will draws a big breath, then nods affirmatively. Under the quick touch of Bev’s fingers, he feels calm.

They’re drinking coffee when Bev’s phone rings. “Ah! Sorry, d’you mind? It’s Patty, she’s at the hospital the whole day today and”

“And you should answer, or she’ll hang up”. Bev flies, literally, to take the call and she smiles fondly, then, as soon as the other voice says hi.

Will can’t help but watching, as Beverly speaks. She is standing a little apart, now, enough not to disturb him but not enough to let it seem as she was uncomfortable speaking in front of him. Bev has told him about Patty: she told him of the class they took together and made them know each other, of the Pediatric Department Patty works at now, all those little notions people usually drop here and there, without even noticing, about a significant other. There’s no word, however, that could convey what Will sees now: the way everything in Bev’s gesture, voice, bright eyes speaks of trust, confidence, bond. Will feels a little embarrassed about reading so much in Beverly’s body and voice; but it’s like the sun. A golden, constant warmth relaxing his skin, his breath. And, when Bev bursts into laughter, then he sees what it is, what’s the thing that’s been giving him this solace. The fact that Bev looks so much at ease, with Will, that she brings in the room even her private emotional self. And the fact, he understands now, that she must have told Patty about him in a way that made this caring partner of her feel ok with her being there, chatting from there, existing there. Bev went through the fire for him; from that first time when she touched him to straighten up his posture when it came to shooting. She went through the forest at night just to tell him that Georgia was not a nightmare of his. She didn’t rob him of her harsh honesty either while scrubbing blood out of under his fingernails. Nor after. Not once. But, somehow, it’s just now, with this shot of domestic intimacy in front of him, that it sinks. The knowledge that Will is a friend to Beverly, at least as much as she is a friend to Will. He closes his eyes, at the thought of it; and he savours it.

A few hours later, they’re definitely drowning in painting, but they’re done. Furniture is going to remain messed up until the walls don’t dry, but it looks already like a new place; a warmer, less haunted one. “Oh, listen, there’s no way I’m not doing this” exclaims Bev, and, under Will’s puzzled gaze, she opens a brand new jar of painting. She sinks her hand in it, her hand comes out brick red, and after gazing at Will – a childlike, pleading look on her face, to which Will can’t help but smile, and nod, giving permission to whatever she’s up to because _he trusts her_ – she leaves a round mark on the wall, with her palm. Then it comes to her thumb, three times pressed around the round mark as to crown it. And, then, Beverly looks at him, a giant smile on her face. That’s a footprint. A dog’s footprint, as it should be.

And Will laughs. He laughs loud, raucous and brief laughter that comes out as if it was rusty, and it is. Beverly’s eyes widen, for a second, but then she joins in. She’s still laughing, her laughter high and clear, when Will mimics her movements and, cautiously, he leaves on his wall another footprint, bigger than hers, just close to it.

***

As the dogs run through the field, they sit in the porch. The first steps out made his pulse accelerate and his eyes shut, warm darkness against the burning sun. “Will? D’you prefer to stay in?”. Will breathes deeply once, twice: “No. I’m a bit of a sociopath, not a vampire, am I?”. Bev raises an eyebrow at his grin, then grins back. They sit down, and drink of the sunset as it paints the grass, the backs of the dogs running.

“What time does she come?” Bev asks, her gaze in the sun.

“Nine, I guess”

“Then five minutes and I’ll get going”

“You can stay. If you want. She coming to see the dogs.”

“Oh. YEAH. Wonder why it slipped my mind.” Will still faces the sunset, but he knows everything about the irony in Beverly’s raised eyebrow.

“It’s better this way. For now”.

“For whom?”

Will stares at her, now, a second of eye contact long enough to see the caring and the concern, in Beverly’s eyes.

“Maybe for me”.

Bev doesn’t look away, and doesn’t speak. Bare minutes after, she stands up, ready to pack her things. The bag on her back, her leather jacket on, she smiles at him: “The day after tomorrow I’m coming to check on the furniture. Don’t you dare put it back where it was”. Will grins at her: “see you, Beverly”.

***

Dusk has become darkness and a handful of stars when Will hears another car approaching. It’s exactly nine o’ clock and he closes his eyes, bids himself to breathe normally, decides that he can settle for this result and goes to open the door.

Alana wears her green and white dress, the one that makes her even more kissable than usual, from a strictly objective point of view; an uncertain smile, and eyes a little swollen, the eyes of somebody who’s not been sleeping that much – or who sees distressing things in his sleep. Will would like to touch her, but he can’t even articulate that thought.

“Hi”, her little smile says: “may I come in?”

Will nods and lets her in: -“they haven’t eaten yet. They’ve been waiting for you.”

“Really? You must be soo so so hungry,” she tells the dogs and the moment after she’s on her knees, welcoming every single one of them, pads and noses and tongues telling her that she has been missed. There’s a small laughter springing out of her chest, as she pats Winston on the head, that makes Will feel unreasonably fine. “That’s a beautiful colour, anyway”, Alana says as she goes to grab some doggy kibbles: “and you still have some of it on your arm”.

“Oh, well. Patient Graham still hasn’t reached the phase of cleaning the shit out of himself alone,” mutters Will heading towards the sink. He can sense Alana tensing up, then relaxing when she sees that Will meant it as a joke. As he washes his arm, only half aware of Alana feeding the dogs behind him, Will suddenly realizes that, the sink being out of his usual position, his crudest memory from _before_ doesn’t arrive. Moving the furniture could be a good idea, after all. At least, moving that goddamn sink.

“D’you want a beer?”. Fuck. This is the second time, today, that he proposes something without thinking that the other person will sure as hell have something diff..

“Yeah. Yeah, it would be nice.”

Will takes two cans from the fridge and throws one to Alana. She opens it and draws a long, long sip before pointing out the sofa: “Can I sit?”. Will nods, measuring up the tiredness in Alana’s face, the frailty in the way she grabs her bag on her lap. He sits down on the sofa, on the opposite side from her.

“That’s a shit of a beer,” Will hears himself saying after a while.

“Thanks God. Hurray for ordinary things”.

Will grins and raises his glass in a silent toast. After another sip, he stands up: “we need more ordinary”. From the kitchen closet he takes cookies, and peanuts butter, both untouched since he bought them in an irrational rush the first day he went to the market _after._ Alana’s face lightens up and for a moment Will sees her as she was at the beginning: serene, and unbreakable. She still is, unbreakable, in spite of it all. Maybe all of them are, if they’re alive. And if cookies help with serenity, Will is fine with it.

Alana hands him her bag once he is seated, and says: “just take it”.

“Open it, please”, she adds when she sees Will staring, uncomfortable, at the bag on his lap.

“Ok…,” he mutters, and when it opens Will understands why it was so heavy. Books. He stares at Alana and there’s a nakedness to her face; there’s uncertainty, pleading, guilt, an hesitant hope. “I thought… You could pick one. If you want. The one you prefer.”

Will puts the books on the sofa, covering the space between them. There’s a little of everything. Carver, Benedetti, Yourcenar, Saramago. There’s _East of Eden_ of Steinbeck and he has to force himself not to reach out to it, not to touch it, not to open it – because he loves it fiercely, and because there’s too much in it to be handled in front of Alana. There’s too much in it to be handled, perhaps. Suddenly, he smiles: “and these ones?”

“Ah, yeah. I know. They’re children books.. and don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I thought of you as.. Oh, fuck it. I’ve not been that good at words, lately. Anyway, they’re among my favorite books, and..”

“And they’re great books”. Will feels her letting go of her breath, as his fingers touch the covers of the novels by Roal Dahl. Will wonders whether they’re the exemplars she read as a little girl.

“This one,” he says, handing out _The Witches_ to her.

“Woah. I used to have nightmares about it, as a child”.

“Are you having nightmares now?”

Will watches her as she closes her eyes, a bitter smile crisping her lips. “Not about witches. Not that I have the right, anyway”.

Will is about to say that nightmares don’t look like a right to be entitled to, to him, but he remains quiet. He knows they’ll have to talk, one day or another. Talk of that peculiar brand of horror, for him strangely far off in the past but still present for her, to find out what one ignored; what one allowed; what one ate. Of the responsibility Alana is taking and of the way it is carving new lines on her face. Of the blame Alana is putting on herself, which makes so short the moments she looks at his face. Of the caring he feels flowing from her. Will also knows that, when the day comes, he could discover in his soul hidden things which are now unknown to him. He knows that the distance between them could prove untamable. He knows. Today, though, it’s not that day. So, instead of talking of nightmares, and distance, and loss, Will asks her: “please, read”.

“Oh. If you prefer, I leave it to you. If you want..”

“I want to listen to you as you read”.

Alana’s smile is small, and it is bright. She nods, crosses her legs on the sofa, and she starts to read.

This way.

Step by step.

Will doesn’t notice it when he falls asleep. When he wakes up, though, he has a fleeting memory of Alana’s warm lips on his forehead, in something that could have been a dream hadn’t it been for the fact that Will’s dreams are never that sweet. Will blinks once, twice, and discovers around himself the grey of dawn, some pillow to make him more comfortable, a plaid well folded around him.

He stands up, unsteady, and goes to grab a glass of water paying attention to the dogs, still fast asleep all around the sofa. On the table, he sees _The Witches_ , with a piece of paper in it to mark the page, and a note on the cover: _if you wait for me, tomorrow we can keep on reading it. I’ll bring the peanuts butter._

_Thanks, Will._

_A._

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language - it has been beta read, but, should you find any mistakes, I'm sorry! If you felt like telling me, I would be super glad to correct them =) This fic is also on my Tumblr (www.cannellaeluce.tumblr.com). Oh, and I stole the title from The National^^


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